When There's No More room In Hell: A Zombie Novel (24 page)

“Radios will be on channel two. We will do a comms check before we leave here, then radio silence until one minute before H-hour to confirm everyone is in position. Once we go noisy, then I want regular updates from Yan and the FSG on what you're doing. Okay, a
ny questions?”

He paused for a moment
to allow for any suggestions. None came. “To summarise, Stu and Jim, hit your primary targets as hard and as quickly as you can. We can’t afford a moment for the machinegun or radios to get used.

“Hussein, Zaid and Ahmed,” t
hey nodded in anticipation, “stay focused, and do exactly as Jim and Stu tell you. Don't get scared or panic, and remain behind the steering wheel of your vehicles.

“It’s surprise, speed and aggression that w
ill get us through this one. The harder and faster we hit them, the less chance they'll have to recover. Keep up the rate of fire and momentum and make sure you're all communicating with each other as you move.

“O
nce the position is taken, we will quickly reorganise ourselves and check for survivors and anything of use. Once complete, we’ll push north as fast as we can to the main crossroads and then turn West.”

They conducted a set of rehearsals, with everybody standing in positions that related to where they would be during the attack and what they would be doing. It was known as a ‘walk through talk through’. It was just a rough set of rehearsals that put everyone in the complete picture
; so that they knew where they would be in respect to everyone else once the shooting started.

T
he orders briefing was over and everyone moved off to finish their preparation or just to sit with their own thoughts. Everyone was scared, despite the brave faces and wisecracks. Anyone who says they're not afraid before an attack is either insane or lying.

It’s the most unnatural thing in the world to do.

Every instinct says not to do it, not to move forward into the hail of enemy fire, the explosions and shrapnel, the man with the gun pointed at you, but it’s the years of training and experience that carries professional soldiers forward, when most people would turn and run in the opposite direction.

There is also the sense of duty. Not duty to the crown or government, but the duty to the friends fighting alongside. A soldier doesn’t fight for a cause or an idea; he fights for the man at the side of him and the men of his unit.

Stu and Ian sat together as they ate. “Bit outnumbered aren’t we?” Ian spoke the same words that Stu had been thinking.

Stu passed his mug of tea to Ia
n who began slurping away at it. “Yeah, but like Marcus said, we hit them hard enough, we should come out on top. Plus, you saw them yourself; they're not exactly switched on are they?”

“Aye, that's true. Anyway, you've no brew left so I'm off to have a nap.”
Stu watched as his friend stood and walked away toward his vehicle.

Marcus sat alone
thumbing the buttons on his phone as he typed out a text to Jennifer. Before he pressed send he deleted the message. She knew that he loved her, he didn't need to worry her by texting her before an attack and leaving her wondering if he was okay. He would try and call them after it was all over.

It was time to move. The night sky was pitch black and with only a scattering of stars. There was no moon and the landscape was a dull
, dark grey around them. Their bodies cast dark silhouettes and it was a while before their eyes began to adjust to the darkness.

They felt grateful
for the lack of moonlight, it gave them the extra cover they needed. All it would’ve taken was for a glint of moonlight to reflect from one of the windows of the vehicles and their plan could be compromised.

There was
a slight breeze drifting from the open flat plain of the Iraqi landscape to the South. A chill in the air made the men shiver as they stood close together, anxious to get moving and get the job out of the way.

They
gathered around the vehicles and listened in as Marcus gave a set of confirmatory orders, roughly outlining the task ahead. Nothing had changed in the plan and everything was set to go.

Both groups then separated, Marcus and his assault group headed across the junct
ion and toward the West in a wide arc, avoiding getting too close to the river, while Stu and the remainder of the FSG began to push and shove their vehicles across the crossroads and turned right toward the tip of the village.

Even with the ground at a slight slope, it was still
difficult to push the heavy armoured monsters through the junction. They had disabled the brake lights and any interior lighting to avoid being detected. Once they had completed the right turn, the wheels turned easier as the SUVs gathered momentum and slowly rolled toward their positions.

The assault group walked one behind the other, with Marcus leading the way. They passed through a f
ield of dying crops and turned North toward the river. They couldn’t see it but they could hear it and it grew louder in their ears as they approached. It was perfect cover for them, but Marcus knew it was a double-edged sword. Though it stopped the enemy from hearing them as they drew closer, it also prevented Marcus and his men from hearing anything beyond the river. A battalion of tanks could’ve parked up in the enemy position and he would never have known.

As they advanced, he heard
a sudden commotion behind him; the sound of a weapon being dropped and a body hitting the floor, followed by a grunt and a groan. Had Ian fallen as he walked at the rear of the group?

He heard more grunts and sounds of a struggle, then, he heard the
lament of one of the dead.

Marcus
sprinted back to the rear of his team. In a heap on the floor he saw three forms as they struggled against each other. Sini was underneath and Yan was crouched over the top, pulling at the body that struggled in between them, trying to pull it away from his friend on the bottom of the pile.

Ian appeared on the other side of them as he ran up from the rear. He stopped short when he saw the body of the infected, thrashing at Sini as he held it away from him, his hands thrust under its chin
, holding it at bay.

It grabbed at his head and neck, trying to pull Sini’s face closer to its mouth
as its teeth gnashed together, over and over. Yan tugged at the clothing of the creature and began to drag it away. He swung both arms to the right and the body tumbled to the ground and away from Sini.

Sini was fast
; he drew the knife he had attached to his assault vest and rolled to his left and up into a crouch, the weapon raised and the weight of his body carrying him forward toward the corpse as it struggled to gain its footing for another attack.

Sini closed the gap fas
t and slammed the blade deep into the top of its skull, burying it to the hilt, feeling the point puncture through the hard bone and into the soft brain inside. He caught his balance before he collapsed with it. The knees of the creature collapsed from underneath and the knife came free in Sini’s hand.

He looked down in disgust and wiped t
he blade on the back of the now permanently dead man sprawled in the grass. The smell of the body assaulted their senses. It had the stink of a corpse that had been left in the sun and that's exactly what it was. It just didn't lie in the sun, it walked in it.

Marcus
eyed him and gave him the thumbs up. It wasn’t a ‘congratulations on a job well done’ or in appreciation of his skill; it was a question asking if he was okay and unscathed. Sini patted his body and checked his neck for any damage before he returned the gesture and nodded.

He crouched and picked up his weapon and Yan patted him on the shoulder, nodding
, then walked on ahead, close on Marcus’ heels.

The river was just fifty metres away and Marcus signalled for his group to stop. Alone, he pushed forward to check the opposite bank
as he crouched in the reeds by the waterside. It was clear, and he returned to lead the others across.

Stepping in
to cold water, during the middle of the night, is never a pleasant experience. It reminded Marcus of his army days. In fact, the whole thing did. He thought that he had left the crawling about in the dark, and conducting recce patrols and river crossings, far behind him when he became a private security contractor.

Marcus had seen plenty of action in his days as a paratrooper. He was involved in operations in Northern Ireland, Africa, the Middle East and the Balk
ans. Now, he was about to go into battle again, but this time, he invaded a country for his own reasons and with just eight other men.
Better than doing it for weapons of mass destruction that can’t be found. Or the war on terror, which was really the rape for oil,
he considered to himself. The thought amused him.

Leading from the front, Marcus p
ushed to the bank and slid into the water, keeping his weapon above the surface. The cold hit him immediately and he inhaled deeply as the water level reached his groin area, stabbing at him like a thousand needles.

He knew that Ian, being much shorter
, would be up to his chest and he didn't envy him. He walked ahead, being careful to place his feet so that he wasn’t knocked off balance by the current and swept downstream.

He heard the faint splash of water as Yan slipped in behind him and they ploughed the twenty metre width of the river to the other side.
The water pushed at their right hand side, trying hard to sweep them along as it flowed to the West.

When
all four men were standing on the far bank, they paused and checked to see that they were still undiscovered.  After the soak period, and happy that nothing was stirring, they continued to move to their objective, hugging the river for a few hundred metres then turning north to their forming up position and start line.

His
stomach felt hollow and his mind was asking a thousand ‘what ifs?’. Stu knew that everyone, including the Iraqis who sat behind the wheels would be asking themselves the same questions.

Every man knew his job, but no amount
of training and preparation or experience of battle could block out the apprehension. On the other hand, they all knew that once the first shot was fired, all nerves and doubts would be dropped and the fight carried through on pure adrenalin and aggression.

The clock t
icked slowly by and far to the East, on the horizon, the faintest glimmer of pink began to show on the otherwise deep purple, sky.

Marcus
lay watching the open ground to his front. The wind caught the wispy strands of grass in front of his face and caused them to brush against his chin as he lay on his stomach with his rifle pointing toward the enemy position.

To his left, he could just make out the faint silhouette of Yan and the mac
hinegun, propped on its bipod legs in front of him. Beyond him, Marcus could barely see the shape of the hill as it touched the horizon. Somewhere, just below the crest, he knew was the Dushka heavy machinegun position, but he couldn’t see it in the darkness. The thought of that monster being there. and having the perfect angle on him and his men as they advanced across its front, made him shiver.

He glanced to his right and squinted
, trying to focus. He remembered that, to be able to see objects in the dark, he had to scan with his eyes in a sort of figure of eight pattern and once he located it, he should look to the side of it rather than straight at it.

He saw the outline of Ian and he knew that Sini would be just a few metres to the other side of him. All were ready, their weapons were in their shoulders and the safety catches were off with their right index fingers along the outside of the trigger guard.

Marcus looked down at the RPG. It had no night sight capability and he sincerely hoped that there would be enough light for him to be able to identify the tank once H-hour came. The rocket was primed and ready, just the safety catch needed to be clicked to fire and, hopefully, the tank would be neutralised.

He cupped his hand tightly around his watch and brought his eye down to squint as he pressed the button on the side to illuminate it
; it read 05:18.

It was close now. He looked at
the far Eastern horizon and saw the first glimmers of the pink dawn slowly forcing the inky blackness of the night back toward the west. He looked toward the enemy positions and was now able to distinguish the shapes of the trenches as the dark churned soil contrasted with the lighter coloured grass and scrub of the riverside.

The knot
in the pit of his stomach clamped tighter. The cold bony fingers that he felt gently grazing down the length of his spine, and forcing shivers through his body, increased. He felt slightly nauseous and trembled with nerves. Even with everyone else around him, he felt alone.

He slowly, without making sudden movements
, raised the RPG into position across his forearms in front of him, ready to be brought up onto the shoulder at the last minute, and fired. He checked his watched again. It was just under two minutes before the attack was to be initiated by him.

The light was almost perfect for a dawn a
ttack. He could see the machinegun to his left, the trenches ahead of him and the tank, about two hundred metres away and in a perfect position for him to get a side on hit.